The music of North Korea includes a wide array of folk, popular, light instrumental, political, and classical performers.

[4][5] After the division of Korea in 1945 and the establishment of North Korea in 1948, revolutionary song-writing traditions were channeled into support for the state, eventually becoming a style of patriotic song called taejung kayo (대중가요) in the 1980s[6] combining classical Western symphonic music, the Soviet socialist realism style, and Korean traditional musical forms.

[8] The characteristic march like, upbeat music of North Korea is carefully composed, rarely individually performed, and its lyrics and imagery have a clear optimistic content.

[10] In 2010, a brutal death metal group purporting to be from North Korea, called Red War (붉은전쟁), released a three-track demo online.

", "One Against a Hundred"), economic production and thrift ("The Joy of Bumper Harvest Overflows Amidst the Song of Mechanisation", "Attain the Cutting Edge (The CNC Song)", "I Also Raise Chickens", "Potato Pride", "Chollima on the Wing"), patriotism ("My Country Is the Best", "We Have Nothing To Envy", "Onwards Toward the Final Victory") and glorification of the party and leaders ("Where Are You, Dear General?

[19] BBC radio disc jockey Andy Kershaw noted, on a visit to North Korea with Koryo Tours in 2003, that the only recordings available were by the pop singers Jon Hye-yong, Kim Kwang-suk, Jo Kum-hwa and Ri Pun-hui, and the groups Wangjaesan Light Music Band, the Mansudae Art Troupe and the Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble, who play in a style Kershaw refers to as "light instrumental with popular vocal".

[20] North Korean pop music is available for visitors to Pyongyang at the Koryo Hotel or Number One Department Store, as well as gift shops in tourist destinations.

However, it was intentionally revived during the Kim Jong Il administration: in the late 2000s, Korean Central Television aired a TV program that introduced those "Enlightenment songs".

Although usually original compositions, the melodies are not easily distinguishable from Western ones in the absence of their lyrics, which heavily feature the customary ideologically oriented content.